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Friday, February 29, 2008

INNER HEROES AND PSYCHOLOGY'S INTELLECTUAL CRAP

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY PHILIP ZIMBARDO IN THE GUARDIAN

Philip Zimbardo invites us to dine and offers a plate of steaming intellectual crap.

Except for certain experimenters, I have a low opinion of psychology as a profession. It is more secular mumbo-jumbo than scholarship and hard knowledge.

There are no "inner heroes." This is a concept without any basis other than Zimbardo's own wish fulfillment.

We do have heroes, but they are exceptional and correspond to just those very people who behave as heroes. And they are often not the military types but the truly brave people who continue their hard responsibilities in life despite the weak examples around them.

Zimbardo has a kind of secular version of the flatulent Christian idea that all people are more or less the same and just need a little help from the Almighty to achieve greatness or grace. Rubbish.

People's character inclinations and strengths are just as varying and genetically-determined as their hairlines, blood pressure, and sexual orientation.